A homily for the Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Jan. 31, 2021
Dt 18:15-20, 1 Cor 7:32-35, Mk 1:21-28
How many demons have you seen lately? Have you gone to the neighborhood exorcist for your unclean spirit problem recently?
Among our many challenges as 21st Century Christians is finding the deeper truths in First Century Scripture or, especially, in The Law and the Prophets that were compiled millennia before that.
We are challenged to see through the eyes of the Apostles and other early disciples when we usually see things through our more scientifically educated eyes, our eyes that have seen and experienced far more than simple fisherman and shepherds who rarely traveled far from their home villages. Who were educated by oral tradition, by word of mouth, and who passed along that knowledge to the next generation orally as well. Who were not exposed to the men who counted the stars or examined anatomy.
To understand, we are challenged to walk in their sandals.
That’s no small challenge, because few of us have the experience or the education to do a one-to-one comparison of what the Israelites understood with what we and our scientific and medical establishment understand.
So we do the best we can from our own 2021 perspectives.
Were the unclean spirits described in today’s Gospel some sort of individually sentient entities that invaded people, hijacking their minds and souls and bodies? To First Century Galileans, that was a widely accepted explanation. To us, that sounds like science fiction or a horror movie.
The modern assessment might look to a medical condition or a mental disorder — a disease to be treated and, God willing, cured or at least put into remission. Any number of syndromes come to mind.
Which would cast Jesus more in his role as a healer than as an exorcist. As we see much more frequently throughout the Gospels.
Yes, in our modern world, we recognize psychological difficulties as the illnesses that they are, and illnesses can be treated.
But also, in our modern world, there are other illnesses that could be classified as unclean spirits or demons to be cast out. Some of these modern demons — and, yes, we often do call them demons — have ancient counterparts.
In Psalm 95, we acknowledge
the great king over all gods…
and this puzzled me for a long time.
Of course the God of Abraham and the Father of Jesus is the great God. We wouldn’t worship I Am if this were not true.
But we also believe that our God is the One. True. God. So how could there be any other gods?
Ancient people fashioned idols out of gold and jewels and worshipped them. Sad to say, we do, too.
We conflate the pursuit of true happiness with the quest for earthly wealth. God vs. mammon. We chase after earthy power under the misguided notion that the Golden Rule is “He who has the gold makes the rules.”
And the income inequality and social injustice of our world are the undeniable results.
Systemic racism, sexism, classism and homophobia are the names we give these diseases, just as Jesus was able to call out a demon by its name, Legion. It is through naming a disease — diagnosing it — that we can begin to rid ourselves of it.
Today, we also recognize many of these diseases as addictions. And we acknowledge that addictions are self-destructive behaviors that need treatment, the healer’s touch.
People may be addicted to substances or to the downward-spiraling behaviors themselves. Addictions become all-consuming. The driving force. The Gotta-Have-It, whatever this “It” is.
Drugs. Sex. Money. Alcohol. Power. Winning. Any combination of them.
Addictions are powerful.
Addictions, like the demons and unclean spirits Jesus cast out, hijack people’s minds and souls and bodies and inflict immense pain and suffering on the addicted person as well as everyone in that person’s life. All of us.
So:
Do demons exist? Yes. Maybe not as portrayed in some grainy black-and-white film, and maybe not floating vaporously waiting for a susceptible soul, but the kinds of demons we understand can strike just as suddenly and unexpectedly.
Fortunately, today, just as in 30 A.D., we have the healing touch of Jesus, both through the very real grace of the Holy Spirit and the very real hands and minds and hearts of the caregivers in the medical profession whom our God Who Is Love sent to us through the miracles of science and Creation.
Let’s pray that, through that divine healing, the demons we name -Isms and Addictions are forever cast out.
